Ping pong is enjoying a surge in popularity and professional tennis table player Tahl Leibovitz is here to help you jump on the bandwagon. In this video, he'll teach you how to do a forehand smash.

My name is Tahl Leibovitz and I'm here at SPiN, New York. I am a professional table tennis player who has been competing internationally since 1995. I am here today to speak to you about the intermediate and beginner aspects of the Olympic sport of table tennis. Okay I'm gonna demonstrate the forehand smash. What's really really important in not only the forehand smash but everything in table tennis is to be able to pass through the ball, especially on the forehand. You need to get the racket to pass through the ball quickly. Okay and the way we do this, it depends on the ball that we get. Now, if somebody's giving us a normal ball we're gonna start here, we're gonna get our shoulder back a little bit, and we're just gonna try to smash through the ball, just like this. Now, if somebody gives us an under spin ball we're gonna smash, but our racket face is gonna be open a little so we can hit the bottom of the ball. And if somebody gives us a top-spin ball we're gonna smash on top of the ball. But the main key with the forehand smash is to be able to get the racket to pass through the ball. You start with your right leg behind you, you have your shoulder back a little bit, and you transfer your weight from left to right. Transfer. The forehand stroke is a very important stroke in table tennis, and we use the forehand smash to, usually, win the point. So we, we try to smash through the ball, the ball travels very fast. And the forehand smash was very effective in the 1970's and the 1980's. It's still very effective today, but the forehand smash is mainly used in order to finish the point, to try to win the point.